“Shot?” Lawrence said. “What the devil happened to the tribunal?”

Removing a handkerchief from his jacket, Pike dabbed his lips, swallowing with distaste as he did so. “There will be no tribunal.”

“Colonel Simonds ordered us detained,” Hawkwood said, wondering if it was his imagination or whether there was a wheeziness in Pike’s voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Colonel Simonds does not command here. I do.”

Hawkwood saw the eyes of the other colonel flicker.

Lawrence turned to Quade. “You bastard.”

Quade smirked.

An expression that said it all.

Perhaps it had been the sergeant’s attitude at the courthouse or the lack of adulation he’d received, but something had persuaded Quade that his best chance of seeing Hawkwood punished was to take the initiative himself. Perhaps it had been Colonel Simonds who’d pointed out that if military justice was to be dispensed in strict accordance with Army regulations, then Quade might have to wait to see it enacted. And it was liable to be a very long wait, given that a tribunal would be a long way down the army’s list of priorities, below sorting out accommodation for the troops and several rungs below the plan for an invasion – if that’s what the activities along the lakeshore were in aid of.

Angry and frustrated at having been, as he saw it, let down by yet another senior officer’s incompetence, Quade had decided to take his grievance directly to the man he should have gone to in the first place: Colonel Zebulon Pike. In Albany, Quade had been less than complimentary about Pike and his notion of how to re-equip frontline troops. Since then, it appeared the major had undergone a change of heart; a pragmatic reversal based on Quade’s realization that, if he was to see retribution visited upon Hawkwood, he would need a powerful ally. And who better than Colonel Zebulon Pike, commanding officer of the troopers Hawkwood had killed in Greenbush? No one could accuse Quade of not seizing his chance. By presenting Hawkwood and Lawrence to the colonel-in-charge, Quade would see his own worth increase and both he and Pike would have their revenge.

And justice, true military justice, as viewed by Major Harlan Quade, would be served. Quickly and comprehensively.

Moreover, when the rank and file learned that their officers had exacted swift and fulsome revenge for the killing of their comrades, their allegiance to Quade and Pike would be that much stronger. If asked, they would follow those officers to hell and back.

“Major Quade believes you’re a spy as well as a murderer,” Pike said, bunching the handkerchief in his fist. There were minute beads of perspiration lining up across the top of his upper lip, Hawkwood noticed. The man was looking decidedly less well as the conversation progressed.